


sweet love in the time of struggle

by Managarmr



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Background Relationships, M/M, Slow Burn, caleb works in a bookstore, might up the rating for later chapters we'll see, not a human AU, or rather attempted slow burn i should say
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-06-09
Updated: 2018-06-09
Packaged: 2019-05-19 23:01:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,008
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14882876
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Managarmr/pseuds/Managarmr
Summary: Caleb wants nothing more than to be left alone with the peace of the bookstore and his novels. Between his shift at the Chastity’s Nook and playing wingman for his friends, he’s already strapped for free time. Unfortunately for him, one Mollymauk Tealeaf is determined to get in his way.





	sweet love in the time of struggle

“Caleeeeeb are you free tonight?”

Caleb does not look up from the floor he is dutifully sweeping when Jester breaks through his thoughts. Or rather, the floor he is dutifully _attempting_ to sweep. Caleb has been sweeping the same spot for the past five minutes.

He's working a shift at the moment, and while he knows his boss would be less than pleased with his zoning out, she isn't here right now to chastise him. Besides, she’d probably understand. It was partially her fault.

Iva Deschin, his boss at Chastity’s Nook, had found something of a kindred spirit in Caleb, both of them being fond of reading novels of both the clean and smutty variety. About a month or so ago, she had drafted up something of a recommendations list for him, and last night's read was an especially erotic, if somewhat old fashioned, homoerotic gothic fantasy between a half-orc and an elf. He had yet to finish it, and had spent most of the morning thinking about the direction it was heading in.

Back to the problem at hand: Jester. He has no idea what she wants from him. What he does know, however, is that his best bet when Jester has latched onto an idea is to be as standoffish as possible.

So he does just that.

“No,” he says, to answer her question. It’s not the rudest he could’ve been, but all things considered he actually does like Jester a lot.

Jester huffs. “That’s what you always say!”

“Because it is the truth.”

Jester scowls from where she’s sitting at the counter of the Chastity’s Nook frontroom. Ever so often she sweeps the crumbs that drop from the numerous pastries she’s been eating onto the floor.

“Would you please stop,” Caleb snaps, finally looking up at her. He gestures with the broom to the floor where the crumb pile has started to attract ants. Jester shakes her head in petty defiance.

“Not until you say you’re free! Nott says you hole yourself up in your room anyways, so it’s not like you’re super busy.”

“I am in fact quite busy, so whatever you had planned for me tonight will have to wait,” Caleb says. He reaches for Jester’s pastry. She dodges with ease and spitefully flicks more crumbs to the floor. Caleb sighs in defeat. It’s not like he isn’t used to this. It was another normal day at the Chastity’s Nook, with Caleb doing (attempting) most of the work, and Jester goofing off while manning the register.

Chastity’s Nook was a small bookstore on one of the many side streets of the shopping district. Caleb liked it for it’s warm, cozy interior atmosphere, and despite the fact that he was one of three employees and was often worked to the point of near death (Beau usually worked the night shift by herself and Jester of course very rarely did anything resembling actual work), he quite enjoyed his job there. It helped put food on the table when only months before he had basically nothing. It also helped that the store had a rather large smut collection in the backroom, of which he was an avid fan. Employee discounts were his life line.

This particular section of the district itself was known for its various mature and niche shops, but there were a decent number of restaurants in the area. Many of the store owners lived above their stores (Iva was an exception, as she lived twenty minutes away by train and rented out the flat upstairs to Caleb and his flatmate Nott instead).

Caleb liked the flat. It had a nice atmosphere for reading, and while he was no stranger to that particular past time, he’d only recently started going through the recommendation list Iva had left him. The list itself had a great many smut novels on it, and it was for this reason Caleb was in fact, busy at night.

Rather than explain to Jester that he was turning her down because he was too busy reading porn, he went with the safer option: ignoring her.

“My name is Caleb and I hate having fun,” Jester says after a minute of no response from Caleb. She says this with a fairly decent attempt at Caleb’s accent, and as much as he’s impressed he refuses to take the bait. She waits a bit to see if he’ll respond before adding: “Fine. I’ll ask Beau and Nott instead.”

She pulls out her phone and in no time at all writes out a text that, judging by the way his phone vibrates in the back pocket of his jeans, was sent to a group chat that  _included him_. He sighs internally, no doubt she's mentioned the fact that he refused to tag along in her text. He’s about to ask her what she had planned tonight that required his presence (at the risk of ruining his “ignore Jester” plan, because admittedly he’s starting to get a bit curious) but at that moment a customer strolls into the store, the little bell on the door alerting the two of their presence.

Caleb takes pride in his keen memory, and it’s his memory that assures him that he’s never seen this customer for the entire time he’s been working here. Niche bookstores like these very rarely get new customers, and Caleb had every single regular’s name memorised. Caleb looks up to greet them (a nod in their direction at most. Greeting customers usually activated his flight response, so Iva had given him permission to just barely acknowledge them instead of the whole “how can I help you?” spiel, for which he is eternally grateful) and is met with the most colourful man he has ever seen in his entire life.

For starters, the man has purple skin. A tiefling, Caleb realises belatedly, although the heavily ornamented horns probably could’ve clued him in on that one. The district didn't get many tiefling customers, mostly humans, half-elves, dwarves and the occasional halfling.

A quick glance at Jester tells Caleb that she’s delighted at the prospect of meeting another tiefling like herself, so he decides to leave him in her hands, going back to his futile mission of sweeping the floor. He does, however, continue to stare (as secretively as possible). He can’t help it.

The tiefling is wearing a huge red coat with so many patterns on it it makes Caleb’s head pound. There are a great many rings on his fingers, and when he turns to wave at Jester, Caleb notices that his fingernails are painted as well. There’s a peacock tattoo on the tiefling’s face, which Caleb finds so fitting he has to resist pulling a face, considering the man himself is a literal peacock. The tattoo stretches to the side of his neck. It’s then that Caleb notices the scars. They don’t look deep, and they’re scattered across his neck and chest. A hundred questions form in Caleb’s mind at the sight, and he makes a mental note to tell Nott later.

Everything about the tiefling is mesmerizing, and Caleb doesn’t realise he’s basically staring at the man’s chest until he clears his throat softly. When Caleb looks up, the tiefling winks at him. A deep blush starts to colour Caleb’s cheeks at being caught staring. He turns around and escapes to one of the shelves in the back.

“Are you new around here?” Jester asks.

“I am! Nice shop you’ve got here,” the tiefling says as he strolls up to the counter. It’s a line straight out of a book, Caleb thinks, right before the villain threatens whoever’s at the counter. It does, however, sound sincere. The tiefling smiles at Jester. His voice is clear, and he has an Irish accent that doesn’t really fit his appearance. Caleb doesn’t know what he was expecting the man to sound like, but that surely wasn’t it. He finds himself intrigued, but he also doesn’t want to seem like he’s interested, so he decides to ignore them in favour of sweeping. He fails.

“I’m Jester,” Jester says and she holds up one of her donuts as an offering. To Caleb’s surprise, the tiefling takes one.

The tiefling smiles as he holds his donut. Caleb misses his name when he introduces himself.

“What brings you here? The smut section is in the back by the way, if you’re interested, which you probably are because it’s really huge,” Jester says, using her hands to indicate just how large the smut section of the store was. It’s at moments like these that Caleb is really in awe of Jester’s ability to not give a fuck about what strangers think of her. It’s part of what he likes about the girl.

The tiefling laughs. “Maybe another time. I’m just dropping by to meet my neighbours.”

“Neighbours?” Jester looks confused for a moment, before her face lights up in understanding.

“Are you the owner of the store that opened up across the street? The uh, what was it?” Caleb can hear, more than see the excitement in her voice.

“The Fletching and Moondrop Corner of Curiosities, but I’m not the owner. I do work there though.”

“No way!” Jester yells, “I wanted to check it out after work but _someone_ (at this she stops to glare at Caleb, who ducks behind a stack of books and continues sweeping, pretending like he hadn’t been listening) said he was too busy to come with me.”

The tiefling laughs again, but this time he also turns to look in Caleb’s direction. To Caleb’s horror, he looks like he wants to approach the shelf Caleb had been hiding behind. In a stroke of luck for Caleb, he stays put, instead choosing to remain at the counter with Jester. This doesn’t stop him from directly addressing Caleb anyways.

“The good lady says you’re busy. Is that true?” His smile is somewhat mischievous, and Caleb makes a point to not look him directly in the eyes. They settle on a point just past the tieflings shoulder.

He'd rather die than admit to what he's busy with, so he remains silent.

“Don’t worry about Caleb,” says Jester. She leans in and pretend whispers, “he’s a bit shy.”

“Is that so?” the tiefling replies, attention returning to Jester. Caleb fiddles with the broom in his hands.

“Yeah! He’s like a cat. A grumpy cat.”

Caleb sticks his head out from behind the shelf and gives Jester a warning look.

“That’s charming. Anyways, I’d love to stay and chat but I’ve over-extended my visit. You can drop by anytime you like before eleven,” he says to Jester.

“I will! I’ll bring Beau and Nott too, I’m sure you’ll like them. Oh, Nott is Caleb’s roommate by the way. She’s really cute, so you can use her to attract customers. Beau will probably scare them away once Nott has brought them in though, so maybe I shouldn’t bring Beau.”

“Bring whoever you like. If they’re all as charming as you I’m sure it’ll be great,” he says smoothly. Jester playfully punches his shoulder. Caleb is amazed at how quickly the two seem to have gotten along, and even more amazed at the fact that a stranger is keeping pace with Jester’s erratic trains of thought.

“Anyways, I have to run. I'm on break right now, but hopefully I'll see you later!” the tiefling says. In the space of time this conversation had occupied, he’d managed to polish off the donut Jester had offered him and he stops to pick up another. He’s almost through the door, before he stops and turns to Caleb.

“You should drop by too if you can.” And with that, he leaves.

Before Caleb can wrap his mind around what just transpired, Jester beats him to the punch.

“Caleb did you see that guy? He was so colourful! I’m going to draw him right now!” she flails her arms in excitement, reaching for her sketchpad.

“Or, you could actually do what your job requires of you instead of playing around,” Caleb says. Jester ignores him.

“You have to come now that he asked you right? Please Caleb? If you don’t I’ll draw you and give you a poop emoji for a head, and then post it on the front door of the shop.”

“That does not worry me, as Iva would stop you from doing that,” Caleb says, “and meeting one of the employees has not really changed the fact that I am busy.” Caleb can tell that he isn’t the type of person he’d be good with. As someone who did his best to blend in with the crowd, someone like him, who clearly enjoyed being the center of attention was as different to Caleb as night and day. And anyways, he had porn to be reading.

“I’ll go another time,” he lied.

This answer seems to appease Jester for now, so Caleb goes back to his job, trying for the upteenth time that day to sweep the floor.

 

  

There was one bedroom in the flat above Chastity’s Nook. It had been Caleb’s before Nott had moved in, but he had insisted she take it once she had. Caleb didn’t have many physical possessions to begin with, mostly just a couple of books and some clothes that hours of determined scrubbing couldn’t clean. Nott, on the other hand, had a penchant for stealing and had a great many trinkets and things that Caleb would rather not be out in the open whenever people came to visit. (The only visitors were Jester, Beau and Fjord, a half-orc Caleb had befriended when he and Nott had been adopted into the group. They all knew about Nott’s kleptomania, but it was the principle of the matter and Caleb really had just wanted an excuse to push the room on Nott.) Caleb had taken the bed though, as Nott, being a goblin, didn’t need one so large. The bed was old, but Caleb wasn’t picky. It was shoved up into the corner of the small living room, directly across from the front door. For privacy, Caleb had haphazardly installed a curtain that blocked his view of the door. It didn’t go all around Caleb's bed, but it gave him just enough cover to be comfortable.

It was on this bed that Caleb spent most of his nights reading and ignoring everything. The two exceptions to this were Nott (of course) and his cat Frumpkin, whose favourite past-time was sitting directly on whichever book Caleb had in his hands. Frumpkin was a stray about seventy percent of the time though, and Nott was with Jester and Beau, so tonight, Caleb was free to tackle his novel in peace.

It's no trouble finding where he left off without a bookmark, since he usually preferred to just memorize the pages. Within an hour he’s finished the book. Not one of his more compelling reads, but it was better than Iva’s last recommendation (which he suspects she wrote herself). To be fair to the book though, every book on Iva’s list had left him kind of wanting for something more. To lessen the empty feeling from having finished it, he gets up from his bed to retrieve another book.

Caleb turns to the shelf that housed most of his books and spots the dusty skull that had been sitting there. Iva swears that it was there in the flat before she bought the building but he knows she's just trying to fuck with him. Nott absolutely hates the skull, which is why it stays on the bookshelf in Caleb’s “room”. He peers at it for a bit.

“What are you looking at?” he asks the skull.

“Why are you talking to yourself Caleb?”

Caleb nearly drops the skull to the floor in fright. Nott closes the door behind her and looks up at Caleb warily.

“...I did not know you were back yet.”

“That makes it even more concerning. Why do you talk with that thing? It’s not talking back to you is it? Oh god it is!” Nott pulls a knife out of her pocket and brandishes it in the direction of the skull, which means she's technically also brandishing it at Caleb.

“Calm down. I was just talking to myself.”

“Yeah and _that's_ definitely not weird either,” says Nott, but she pockets the knife and heads into her room.

Caleb returns to his bed after picking up another book, pretending to leaf through at a pace he thinks looks believable. He wants to ask Nott about the store, but doing so would imply that he’s interested in it, which he isn’t, so he waits for her to talk about it instead. He wasn’t sure if the fact that she hadn’t said anything felt odd because he was anxious about what she had to say, or for some other reason.

Nott never retired without saying good night though, which leads Caleb to believe that it was the latter. Caleb knows what it is before he's even reached her door.

“What did you take this time Nott,” he asks as he pushes the door open. Sure enough, laid before her on a small pillow is her newest treasure. It’s a small, incredibly gaudy ring. There's a huge moonstone inlaid in the center. It takes a second, but when it clicks he realises that the tiefling from earlier had been wearing an identical ring on his finger when he stopped by the store.

Nott scoops up the ring and hides it behind her back.

“Nothing! I stole nothing! What gave you that idea?”

Caleb sighs.

“What did I tell you about stealing from people we would see again Nott? Strangers are fine but this guy has a shop on this street! Right across from our home!”

Nott brings the ring forward and fiddles with it a bit. She doesn’t question how Caleb knows who the ring belongs to, so he figures Jester’s already told her about the tiefling’s visit to the bookstore.

“I know, but it's so pretty! I couldn’t help myself. And he didn't even notice! I stole it right off his hand y’know? Beau helped distract him. I don't think she likes him very much.”

Caleb sits down on the ground. ‘It’s alright but please, next time you get the itch please let me know. I would have done something.”

Nott fidgets some more. “Fine. Moving on, you should've come today Caleb. The store has a lot of weird shit in there, but I saw some books and things like that. You could even get a friend for your uh, friend.” She gestures towards the skull.

“Yorick and I are perfectly happy on our own,” Caleb says. He playfully pulls the hood of Nott’s sweater down.

“The fact that you’ve named it is deeply concerning, but I’ll let it slide for now.”

“Can I see the ring?”

Nott hands it over without question, although she does begin to eye him warily when he doesn’t give it back after a couple of minutes.

Caleb considers his options. He doesn't care that much that a complete stranger is missing a ring, but returning it would be the perfect excuse to visit the store once, and then never again. He blames Nott for peaking his curiousity. Besides, he did want Nott to stop stealing from people that they knew, even just barely. It was harder to stay low-key that way.

A thought bubbles up in his head that maybe, just maybe, he wants to visit the store for other reasons. Unable to place why, he ignores it and pockets the ring.

“I knew you'd do that!” Nott grouches.

“Hush, I can buy you whatever you like later, but this I think should be returned.”

“What are you going to tell him? ‘Hello, my friend stole this from you but I'm returning it so please don't arrest us?’”

Caleb shrugs. He can feel his nerves acting up but he tries not to let on.

“I'll think of something.”

 

 

Despite his resolution to return the ring the previous night, now that Caleb has had time to sleep on the decision he realises that he doesn’t actually want to go return the ring in question. To put it bluntly, his anxiety is getting in the way. The ring sits like a stone in the coat of his sweater, and Caleb wonders for a brief moment if he should just throw it away. He can’t return it to Nott after all his heckling of her stealing it in the first place, so that seemed to be the only other option besides returning it.

A small part of him knows he’s being ridiculous, and it makes him feel pathetic. He wonders briefly if he can ask Jester to return it for him, but he doubts Jester knows in the first place about Nott’s stealing it. Jester is as much a trickster as Beau and Nott are, but unlike the other two she’s nicer to people she wants to be friends with. Also, he turned her down yesterday, so he’d feel bad asking a favour of her today. He was on his own in this one.

By the time he's finished his shift, he’s decided that anxiety be damned, he would do the right thing. It’s while he’s standing in front of The Fletching and Moondrop Corner of Curiosities Caleb realises he has thought of no explanation that seemed plausible for why he had the ring in the first place. The easiest thing to go with was that it had just dropped in Chastity’s Nook yesterday, but how easily does one drop a ring off their finger?

“That is the anxiety talking,” Caleb whispers to himself, “It is an okay excuse. A solid seven out of ten at least. Given the situation you could not ask for better.”

“Not to rush you but are you going to come inside? Gustav doesn't like when people loiter.”

Caleb looks up and is met with a very tall, very pale woman. She's leaning forward as she looks out from behind the door of the shop, and not even that is enough to change the fact that she completely eclipses Caleb.

“Right. Sorry.”

The woman turns around but holds the door open, and Caleb follows her inside. Seven out of ten will have to work.

The Fletching and Moondrop, as Nott had so gently described the night before, has a lot of shit in it. The lights are dimmed, which only helps to make the store feel more crowded. The shelves are packed with an assortment of books, scrolls, statues, figurines, stacks of board games and mannequins modeling different pieces of costume jewellery. In the corner, a pair of fake scimitars hang on the wall. Behind the counter is a sign that says in cursive “We welcome trading. Please no damaged items.” Caleb has a hard time cataloguing exactly what kind of store this is. It seems to sell literally anything he could think of. Sure enough, in another corner is a pile of Halloween decorations (it’s the middle of February), and right next to that is a rack of clothing with a sign that says “For Sale. 30% off. Minimal blood.”

Caleb looks to the woman for an explanation, and is relieved to find that she has one when she points out that they're clothes used for plays. All in all it’s a very strange store. He can see why Jester was so excited to check it out.

The woman is seated at the counter, not behind it, so the only reason Caleb can infer that she works here is because she’s wearing a name tag.

“Yasha,” Caleb says aloud. Yasha nods politely in his direction but says nothing. They stay like that for another two minutes before Caleb realises that she intends to stay silent.

Caleb clears his throat. “Is- um” he starts. It’s at that moment that he realises he had forgotten to get the tiefling’s name. He hadn’t thought to ask Nott, too caught up in her theft to really think about it. With a sinking feeling in his gut he realises that this entire plan is a disaster.

He’s two seconds away from turning and bolting out of the store when Yasha clears her own throat to get his attention.

“Are you here to see Molly?”

Caleb pauses. “Is Molly the, er, is he the purple one?”

Yasha nods, pulling out a phone. “Yes. Just a moment.”

It is in fact just a moment. A door with an “Employees Only” sign opens up and the tiefling, whose name is apparently Molly steps out and into the store. He's wearing the same coat from yesterday and a pair of striped pajama pants that somehow manage to be more obnoxious in colour than the coat.

“Caleb!” Molly says upon seeing him, “You came by a lot sooner than I thought you would. Jester didn't make you out to be the friendly type.”

Caleb only stares back, forgetting to speak. The fact that Molly remembered his name had thrown him off.

“What can I help you with?” Molly continues, skipping over the fact that Caleb had remained silent.

“I am not here to make friends.” Caleb manages, a beat too late.

Molly takes it in stride. Caleb is starting to get the sense that he’s unshakeable. “That's a shame. Did Yasha show you around? There's a patio out back where we serve tea in case you're thirsty or anything.”

Yasha has long since exited the conversation, which Caleb actually kind of appreciates. Molly is standing next to her, and Caleb notes that they make quite an odd pair. Where Molly is all colours, Yasha is all monochrome. She's wearing different variations of black, grey and white. The most colourful thing about her is her eyes, one green and one purple. Caleb looks away before he gets caught staring again, and with some reluctance forces his gaze back on Molly. He is after all, the reason why Caleb is even here.

“Thank you, I think, but I am not here for tea either.”

Before Molly can open his mouth again and derail both the conversation and Caleb’s train of thought, Caleb pulls out the ring.

“I am here to return this.”

Molly raises an eyebrow. “Now how’d you get that?”

 _Seven out of ten_ he reminds himself. _The odds are on your side._ “You dropped it in the store yesterday and I found it while sweeping. I know it is yours because you were the only customer yesterday that was wearing rings this...flashy.” To rid himself of all the panic induced adrenaline that comes with lying in a situation like this, Caleb walks up to Molly and drops the ring in his now outstretched palm. Caleb hopes his hand doesn’t shake. His left hand fiddles with the sleeve of his sweater.

“I did?” Molly exchanges a glance with Yasha. Caleb feels his heart sink into his boots. Did they know?

“We've been here less than a week and you're already causing others trouble Molly,” Yasha says quietly, but not unkindly. Molly smiles fondly at her before turning back to Caleb.

“So it would seem. Thank you very much Caleb.”

Molly slips the ring onto his finger without so much as a blink. With that, the ring is returned to the finger on which it belongs, and Nott's damage is undone. Caleb immediately turns to leave. Before he makes it to the door he's stopped by a jewelled purple hand. He tries to play off his flinching as he turns to face Molly. Of course it wasn't going to be so easy.

“Can we talk outside for a minute?” Molly says. His voice has a hint of seriousness in it that Caleb doesn't like.

Caleb doesn't respond, but Molly let's him head out the door and follows him anyways.

“I know she stole it,” Molly says once the door is closed and Yasha is out of earshot, "your friend that is." Caleb freezes. Molly continues.

“I'm not mad. You don't have to look so scary. Or scared I should say. A little bit of both actually. You sure you don't want any tea? It’ll calm your nerves a bit.”

Caleb ignores him. “Why aren't you mad?”

Molly tilts his head a bit in confusion. “Why would I be? She's really good at it. The only reason I noticed was because your friend Beau wouldn't stop smirking afterwards but hey. No harm no fowl. Did you know she stole it right off my finger? That's terribly impressive.”

Caleb is having a hard time catching up.

“Nott stole from you.”

“That she did.”

“And you are not mad.”

“That I am not. Although as a word of advice from me to her, she should probably steal from people who won't miss what they have. Can you tell her that for me?”

Caleb’s head is reeling but he feels himself nod.

Molly smiles. He is never not smiling Caleb thinks.

“Great! Truth be told, I like Nott, and you seem pretty alright yourself. I wouldn't have minded too much anyways had you not returned it, but don't tell her that. Oh, and I didn’t tell Yasha either of course. Wouldn’t want to get off on the wrong foot with her I assure you, but you all seem like lovely people so I figured it wouldn’t be worth it causing a stir.”

Caleb takes a second before responding.

“You are quite strange Mr.- Uh.”

“Tealeaf, Mollymauk Tealeaf, but call me Molly please.”

“...Mollymauk.”

Molly shrugs. “That'll work for now. So what's the deal with you and Nott anyways? You're roommates? How do a goblin and a human end up as roommates in a flat above a smut novel shop.”

“We are not a smut novel shop.”

Molly raises an eyebrow.

“Ok. We are _sometimes_ a smut novel shop.”

At that, to Caleb’s complete surprise, Molly laughs. His laugh, much like his voice when he had first heard it, is not what Caleb expects. It's rough and uninhibited. Caleb hadn’t been trying to make a joke though, but it's fine he supposes. Anything to disrupt the awful situation he’d landed himself in.

“She's not your daughter or anything like that is she? She seems kind of around your age so I feel that's not correct,” Molly continues when he's done cracking up at Caleb’s not-joke.

“Of course not.”

“I didn't think so.”

Molly seems satisfied with that answer, and silence falls on them for the millionth time today. Caleb begins to get uncomfortable.

“I am...going to leave now,” he says. Before Molly can respond Caleb turns and flees to the Chastity’s Nook. As he crosses the street he doesn’t look back.

 

 

“Did everything go ok?” Nott asks when Caleb returns to their flat. She looks a bit concerned. He had taken longer than he intended to on his mission to return the ring, partly because he stopped to chat with Beau before heading up.

“It went better than expected, yeah,” Caleb responds, although his heart is still pounding. With what, he doesn’t know. He assumes it’s the leftover anxiety making him feel so restless. He tries not to think about how hastily he left, since reliving the moment makes him want to drag his hands down his face.

“You do not need to worry so much. He says to steal from people who would not miss what you took from them by the way.”

Nott jolts in surprise. “He knew this entire time? Oh god, that's going to make going back there very awkward.”

“Beau gave you away, maybe do not ask her for help next time?”

Nott makes up her face. “I knew she was being too obvious! I didn't even need her help really, at least I know that now.”

“Right. And you are never stealing from The Fletching and Moondrop again so it doesn’t matter really.”

“Sure Caleb, if that’s what you want. Anyways I'm heading to bed now. Don't stay up until four am again please, it's hard waking you up for breakfast,” Nott says as she walks over to her room.

“Sorry. Time gets away from me when I am-”

“Edubating?” And then she laughs and shuts the door to her room before Caleb can respond.

Caleb takes out his phone and sends a text to Beau.

_Stop teaching people that word._

Hardly thirty seconds pass before Caleb’s phone vibrates.

_Beau: Don't know what you're talkin’ about edubator._

 

 

About a week or so passes after Caleb’s visit to The Fletching and Moondrop. Initially, he’d been kind of unnerved by the whole encounter, and had spent the first half of the week going over in his head what Molly had said to him. His shifts are never usually that busy, which he used to appreciate and had then felt cursed by, all the free time during work had enabled his mind to keep wandering back to Molly. He was so different from Caleb, and while Caleb accepts that people are obviously different from one another, he couldn’t really understand being alright with being stolen from just because the thief was _good at it_. He couldn’t find the logic. He supposed Molly had just wanted to avoid any unnecessary drama, like he had said, but it would’ve been perfectly normal for him to be mad about the entire thing. In the past few days he’s spent pondering this, it hadn’t become any clearer to him why Molly had been such a good sport about the entire thing.

Eventually he’d just dropped it and moved on with his life. He had been serious about not returning to the Fletching and Moondrop after returning Molly’s stolen ring. This decision was only compounded by the fact that there wasn’t anything of any particular use to him in the store. Also, he was just a little bit scared of Molly (Molly being someone who clearly enjoyed the spotlight, which he didn't know how to handle), but he’d never admit that to anyone.

Besides, there were more important things he wanted to spend his time on. He had started a new book on Iva’s list, and it was promising so far. It was the first of two novels about the forbidden romance between a drow and a human, and while he usually tended to avoid cliche love stories like that, this one had actually been refreshing and dodged the usual awful tropes. He’d been dying to get back to his room and finish it so he could start the second volume.

Snapping fingers in front of Caleb’s eyes jolt him out of his mind.

It's Jester. She seems amused at the fact that Caleb had been zoning out hard enough to completely miss the fact that she was trying to get his attention, rather than annoyed.

“What’s wrong Caleb?” she asks, “you look kind of constipated, and not in a good way.”

“There is a good way to be constipated?”

“No, but if there was you definitely don’t look like it. Tell Dr. Jester what’s on your mind,” she says. She pushes Caleb over to one of the sofas in the store and sits down, patting her lap. Caleb sighs. He’s long past feeling embarrassed at Jester’s silly shows of affection, but he can still feel his ears heat up slightly as he lies down on the sofa and places his head in Jester’s lap.

“Now tell me what’s wrong,” Jester says.

Caleb knows Jester knows that he isn’t really one for opening up when he has something on his mind, but he throws her a bone anyways.

“It’s nothing serious,” Caleb starts. In the end he knows his efforts to downplay his already unimportant issue are all for naught, as Jester’s talent is blowing things out of proportion, but he tries anyways. Really he just doesn’t want her to discover that he’s feeling impatient because he wants to finish reading his porn.

He’s not sure why, but he pulls up the week’s earlier pondering about Molly instead. It’s better than admitting the whole porn thing anyways.

“Let’s say, for example, that someone steals from you. Someone you have only just met,” Caleb starts.

“Did someone steal from you?” Jester asks. Her voice has developed a sudden edge to it, so Caleb isn’t surprise when she follows the question with a threat.

“Who did it? I’ll beat them up for you.” He doesn't doubt it. She peers down into his face with an almost overwhelming intensity. Caleb resists the urge to shrink back, mostly because he has nowhere to go.

“No Jester, no one stole from me, er, I was reading a book you see,” Caleb lies.

“Oh ok then! Go on.”

Caleb continues. “And in this book, well, the two people have only just met each other. And then one of them steals from the other.”

“Sounds kind of like something Nott would do,” Jester laughs. If she notices him freeze up a bit she says nothing. She’s started absentmindedly playing with Caleb’s hair. He sighs internally, but lets her do it. It’s not like he cares about his appearance.

“She has gotten better about stealing though, hasn’t she?”

“She has, but she still does it! Have you seen her room lately? I mean you probably have because you’re best friends that live together,” Jester says.

“Right, so a day later, a third party finds out about the theft, and decides to return the stolen property.”

“Won’t that just make the third person look like the thief?”

“Yes, but the third person had intended to tell them that the owner had dropped it.”

“That’s dumb.”

Caleb frowns. “I’d say it is a pretty decent excuse all things considered…”

Jester shrugs, clearly not buying it. This unnerves Caleb even more about the entire ordeal with Molly, but it’s in the past so he stifles the feeling.

“So what happens next?” Jester asks.

“After the third person returns the item, the owner reveals all along that they knew they’d been stolen from. But, however, they aren’t mad.”

“Why not?”

“They said, ‘Why would I be mad? The thief is really good at it.’ I’ve been trying to figure out why the owner isn’t upset about the theft,” Caleb says. Saying it out loud reveals no new information to him about that decision.

“ _This_ is what’s been making you look like you have to poop all the time?” Jester says. Caleb can tell her interest in his “dilemma” is fading. He congratulates himself on a job well done, while simultaneously feeling a bit embarrassed at the fact that Jester is unknowingly calling him out for thinking so much about something that admittedly didn’t warrant all the time spent thinking about it. The issue had been sorted without a hitch a week ago.

“I vaguely remember saying that it wasn’t serious,” he mumbles. He hopes his face isn’t reddening.

“Yeah well, I was hoping it’d be something like you had a crush on someone or maybe you had discovered that you had, like superpowers or something,” Jester says. Caleb stares up at her in disbelief.

“I already have a superpower,” Caleb says.

“Oh yeah? What is it?”

“Managing an entire store by myself while my coworker goofs off.”

Jester pinches his nose in retaliation. The contact makes his face redden even more, and he swats at her hands.

“Did I come at a bad time?”

Caleb ceases his attempts to release his nose from Jester’s surprisingly strong grip to see Fjord, watching them with poorly hidden amusement on his face. Caleb waves weakly in his direction.

“Fjord!” Jester yells, “listen to this problem Caleb is having!”

Fjord frowns. “In a second, shouldn’t one of you be manning the register?”

“Is money more important than Caleb’s problems to you Fjord?”

“You were calling it stupid a moment ago,” Caleb says. His voice sounds ridiculous with Jester pinching his nose like that. She lets up.

“Just because someone’s problems are stupid doesn’t mean that his friends shouldn’t care about them.”

“It is not a problem, you were pestering me to tell you what was on my mind. I told you and here we are.” He recounts his concealed version of last week’s ordeal to Fjord anyways. Admittedly Caleb is starting to regret bringing it up in the first place. He was only trying to get Jester off his back so that he didn’t have to admit that he had simply wanted to read smut fiction, and now here he was retelling an event he had to pretend didn't happen to him to two of his closest friends.

“Is that some kinda brain twister or something?” Fjord asks.

“It’s from a book he was reading,” Jester says.

“Hm. It's possible the owner was just trying to look good in front of the third party if you ask me,” Fjord says.

That makes Caleb stop for a moment. He’d honestly wanted this entire thing over and done with, but he supposes this is what he gets for bringing it back to life by means of his impromptu therapy session with Jester.

“Why... would they do that?” Caleb asks. He tries not to sound panicked at the implications of what Fjord had said.

“Yeah Fjord? Why not the thief then? Wouldn’t they be trying to look good in front of the thief?” Jester says.

“If they were they would’a just gone to the thief shortly after the theft and complimented them about how good they are at stealing instead. Saying nothing to no one shows they don’t really care much about the thief’s actions, and they could've just gone with the third party's excuse if they didn't care. Telling the third party about how it’s no problem makes it seem like they’re trying to look good in front of the third party, kind of like they’re showing off how selfless they are. Or maybe they really don't ca-, ok seriously. Is this important? There’s no one at the register,” Fjord finishes, slightly exasperated.

“Stop worrying about that Fjord, Iva never comes in during the day anyways unless there’s an emergency or something,” Jester says, but now that the mystery is solved she gets up and heads to the register anyways.

Ultimately Fjord’s worries were for nothing, the bookstore hadn’t had any new customers since Caleb’s shift had started earlier.

“What’s this about Caleb?” Fjord asks.

Caleb can feel a headache coming on. He takes a pillow from the edge of the sofa and rests it under his head. “Nothing. A new book.”

Fjord looks unimpressed but doesn’t comment on it, and heads to the front of the store to talk to Jester.

Caleb’s shift isn’t over for another three hours, but he stays on the sofa a bit longer lost in thought. He knows it doesn't really make sense to take Fjord’s theory as the truth, since Fjord didn't know who Caleb had been talking about or the truth of the situation. Still, the idea that Molly had been trying to impress him somehow had thrown him for a loop. He suddenly feels a lot more resolute in his decision to never set foot in the hobby shop again, just to avoid dealing with the information.

“You two wouldn't happen to have any aspirin would you?” Caleb calls from the couch.

Fjord and Jester both say no in unison, and Caleb groans and rolls over on the couch.

 

 

Caleb is not startled by the appearance of Molly in the store a day after Caleb had decided he never really wanted to see the man again. He's come to expect this sort of thing from his life.

“Um, hello Mollymauk,” he says, and running through the customer service script so that he has something to say, adds “can I help you with anything?”

“No no, I’m not really one for reading actually.” The Cheshire grin is planted on his face, and Caleb wonders if it ever leaves.

“Jester doesn't come in for another hour,” Caleb says.

“Is that so? That's good to know, although she's not the reason I'm here.”

That wasn’t what Caleb had been expecting.

“What are you here for, if not to buy books or see Jester.” Fjord’s previous comment comes to mind and Caleb has a hard time ignoring it. He resists the urge to drag his hands down his face.

Mollymauk begins to answer the question, but before any sound leaves his mouth he pauses, and then seems to reconsider. The smile on his face turns even more mischievous.

“Not telling.”  

Unsure of how to respond to that, Caleb lets the silence become a bit awkward. After a couple seconds, he breaks.

“Ok... then,” he says. He remains seated. 

Before Molly had entered the store, Caleb had been reading one of Iva’s recommended books. It was concealed behind a larger, more publicly appropriate book, and Caleb was determined to make it at least half-way through during his shift.

It seemed that life had other plans for him.

“Is Beau around?” Molly asks.

 _Beau?_ Caleb vaguely remembers Nott mentioning that Molly and Beau hadn't gotten along so well during their first (and only, to Caleb’s knowledge) meeting. Still though, that wasn't really his business.

“She has the night shift,” Caleb says. He does his best to ensure his eyes don't leave the pages of his book.

“That’s a shame. When you see her can you give her this for me?” Molly digs around in his coat pocket and procures a small sheet of paper. On it is a phone number, and a drawing of a hand giving the finger. Caleb’s curiosity gets the better of him, but he still shuts his book with some reluctance. He apparently spends too long staring at it trying to understand, because Molly starts laughing.

“It’s Yasha’s number. Beau won a bet the first time she came around to visit the store,” Molly says, “unrelated to this whole stealing thing,” he adds as an afterthought.

“What was the bet?”

To Caleb’s surprise, Molly actually looks a bit uncomfortable. He hasn't known the man for very long, but he can tell it's not a facial expression that he's used to wearing. “Honestly I’d rather not say, but since you've asked. It was whether or not you’d visit the store within the week," Molly says. "And it wasn't my idea," he adds.

Caleb isn't sure why Molly looks uncomfortable at that, it’s not the kind of thing Caleb would take offense to, being used in a bet. He does wonder why Beau would know he’d visit the shop though.

“Beau’s reward for guessing that I would correctly visit your store is Yasha’s phone number? That doesn't make any- _oh._ ” It clicks.

“Yup,” Molly says easily when he sees the understanding in Caleb’s face. He looks relieved that Caleb didn't seem to indicate any sort of annoyance at the fact that they were betting on him. “It's no problem though. I wouldn't actually give Beau my dear Yasha’s number without her permission.”

“I see.” Caleb didn't really ask but alright then.

“Well, now that my job here is done I must be going. Tell Jester I said hi,” Molly says, and he waves goodbye and leaves the store. Caleb pockets the sheet of paper and watches him cross the street.

Once he's out of sight, Caleb pulls out his phone and texts Beau.

_Please tell me you didn't convince Nott to steal a ring from Mollymauk because you knew that I would find out and return it._

_Beau: shit was my master plan discovered?_

_Beauregard._

_Beau: Oh no he's breaking out the FULL NAME. I'M SO FUCKING SCARED._

_Beauregard._

_Beau: In my defense, everything went according to plan. You only have yourself to blame Caleb._

_…_

_Beau: How’d you even find out? did molly run his mouth off to you or something?_

_While dropping off your reward, he informed me. It is now currently in my pocket and at my disposal._

_Beau: Caleb I fucking swear_

_Heh._

**Author's Note:**

> Originally this was going to be a oneshot, but I kept changing the idea up and eventually decided that it works better as a chaptered story (in my head at least). I haven't written and posted a fanfiction in years so please go easy on me. (Also it's not beta read, so there are probably a million mistakes.)


End file.
